(The following article by Charlie LeDuff was posted on the New York Times website on January 26.)
COMPTON, Calif. — Until Wednesday, Juan Manuel Alvarez was living the average life of an obscure and troubled man.
He had an arrest record for cocaine, a turbulent relationship with his estranged wife and a restraining order to keep away from her and their two children.
But then in the early morning darkness of Wednesday, Mr. Alvarez introduced his troubled life to the world when he drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the commuter railroad tracks of Glendale, killing at least 10 people and injuring about 200 more.
Mr. Alvarez had meant to kill himself, investigators said, but changed his mind when he saw the train barreling down on him. When he could not get his vehicle off the tracks, he ran. He was in police custody Wednesday evening, said to be distraught but cooperating.
“He’s carrying a lot of baggage and talked about killing himself,” said Sheriff Lee Baca of Los Angeles County. “When the train came, he got scared, he couldn’t go through with it. He left his car there and instead of killing himself, he killed many innocent people.”
His motive for wanting to kill himself, according to investigators, appears to be that his estranged wife, Carmelita, would not let him see their two children. The couple separated three months ago, and she got a temporary restraining order against Mr. Alvarez about two months ago, the police said.
Mr. Alvarez’s sister-in-law, Maricela Amaya, told Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network, that he had recently tried to see his boy and threatened to kill himself.
“He was having problems with drugs and all that and was violent, and because of that he separated from her,” Ms. Amaya said in Spanish. “A few other times he went around as if he wanted to kill himself. I said if you’re going to kill yourself, go kill yourself far away. Don’t come by here telling that to my sister.”
After the bodies had been cleared from the wreckage, law enforcement officials began to wonder if Mr. Alvarez might have killed his family. But Mrs. Alvarez was tracked to a modest home in the north section of Compton. A man standing outside the family’s home, who described himself as a relative, said Mrs. Alvarez and the children were uninjured.
According to investigators, Mr. Alvarez spent the evening before slashing his wrists and even stabbed himself in the chest, but the wounds were superficial and he did not bleed enough to fall unconscious.
And so sometime Wednesday morning, Mr. Alvarez, 25, drove to the Glendale tracks, near the Los Angeles City border, and parked his car. He decided not to go through with it, but the vehicle got stuck between the tracks, the police said. Mr. Alvarez ran to safety and watched the carnage he had caused, witnesses told the police.
“He came to Glendale to commit suicide,” surmised Mayor Bob Yousefian of Glendale, a normally uneventful city of 210,000 just north of Los Angeles City Hall. “He kind of ran, tried to hide, but because of his previous injuries, he got apprehended.”
Chief Randy G. Adams of the Glendale police said he was “very confident” that he had the right man, going by Mr. Alvarez’s own admissions and witnesses on the train who saw him run.
“This whole incident was started by a deranged individual that was suicidal,” Chief Adams said.
Mr. Alvarez is likely to face at least 10 counts of murder, the chief said.